During my first read, all I could think was, “Damn, this dude is deep!” I’ve always admired Dr. Ferrara, especially after having him teach Music History III last semester. He has all the brains and talent in the world, yet he is a fun-loving, humble cat. Dr. Ferrara starts by explaining how music can be perceived based on the individual, or simply the degree of examination. I believe he wants his readers to combine a variety of methods to deeply analyze music. In the age of the internet, it is so easy to type in a few words and read hundreds of articles about a certain artists or song. This method of analysis only gives us a one-dimensional view of a piece that is essentially spoon-fed to us through the Internet. As a musician/observer, we must analyze any piece of music using several methods, including phenomenological methods, conventional methods and hermeneutic methods. By observing a piece through three different lights, we are able to fully grasp the essence of a piece on many levels.
REACTION
I bet most of the students have commented on how deep Dr. Ferrara’s wordplay is. I certainly agree with these students. He has one helluva gift. I certainly agree that we need to change the way we look at music. As a society, I believe our analysis of music has been watered down. A random song on the radio may evoke some emotion, but what makes the average person stop there? I’ve heard many people say, “Well, the beat’s great and it really makes me want to dance, so I love the song!” Hell, even I’m guilty of this feeling on occasion. We need to drive past that outer emotion and dig deep into the depth of a song. From this point on, I take an oath to step back and fully immerse myself into music. Whether it’s a legendary hit by the Beatles or a club banger by the Ying Yang Twins should not matter at all.
